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Fruma Lieberman Perlmutter

1904
—Luczyce, Poland

Fruma was one of four children born to a Jewish family in the Polish village of Luczyce. Her parents owned a large farm near the village. In the early 1920s, Fruma married Simcha Perlmutter, a philosophy professor at the university in Lvov, and the couple settled in Horochow. By 1929 the couple had two daughters, Tchiya and Shulamit.

1933-39: In September 1939, as Simcha was arranging for his family to emigrate, Germany invaded Poland. Three weeks later the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland where Horochow was located. Refugees fleeing the Germans streamed through the town. Soviet rule did not change the Perlmutters' daily lives much. They remained in their home and Simcha continued to teach in Lvov.

1940-45: In 1941 Germany invaded the USSR and set up a ghetto in Horochow. In 1942, with rumors that the ghetto was about to be destroyed, Fruma and Shulamit fled. They had just hidden in the underbrush at the river's edge when they heard shots. They hid, submerged in the water, all night as machine guns blazed in the ghetto. By morning others were hiding in the brush and they heard a Ukrainian guard scream, "I see you there Jews; come out!" Most obeyed but Fruma and Shulamit hid in the water for several more days as the gunfire continued.

Fruma disappeared while her daughter lay, dozing, in the water. Shulamit, who survived the war, believes Fruma may have drowned in her sleep, been shot in the water, or captured by the Germans.